• by Gavin O'Malley , March 8, 2005

Contextual advertising services provider Kanoodle yesterday announced the addition of a local targeting tool to its content-targeted suite of products. Local Target, currently built into Kanoodle's ContextTarget program, means to give advertisers the ability to reach local customers via a topic-matching approach to listings on market-specific pages.

The product will allow local and national businesses to better target customers in specific markets, drive them to brick-and-mortar outlets, and increase brand penetration in specific geographic areas, according to Kanoodle CEO Lance Podell. "It's the first sponsored links product built solely for local targeting on content pages," Podell said.

Podell characterized Kanoodle's announcement as a product launch, and said that existing and potential clients who will be using Local Target will be named sometime in the future.

"We've created a group of topics centering on individual communities, so clients can target their desired audience living and working where they want their ads to be," Podell explained. "This will help advertisers to monetize more content, extend their reach, and get a bigger bang for their buck."